At 25 Main Street in Stockbridge is a mansion built in 1894 for Charles E. Butler (1818-1897). It was designed by Robert S. Stephenson and Stanford White. After 1904, it was known as “Swann Cottage” and was home to Mrs. John Butler Swann. Later an inn, the house was acquired by the Austin Riggs Center in the 1950s (it is now the Center‘s Medical Office Building). The wings were added for medical offices and the building was painted white in 1957.
Naumkeag (named after the original name of Salem, Massachusetts) is a shingle-style house built in 1885 in Stockbridge. It was designed by Stanford White of McKim, Mead & White for Joseph Hodges Choate (1832–1917), a prominent New York City attorney who served as American ambassador to the Court of St James’s from 1899 to 1905. Naumkeag was next owned by his daughter, Mabel Choate, who worked with noted landscape designer Fletcher Steele to design the estate’s landscaped grounds. She bequeathed the property in its entirety to the Trustees of Reservations and it is open to the public. Continue reading “Naumkeag (1885)”